The day before that he will address Parliament for the second time and
give the country an overview of what has been/has not been achieved in
the first quarter of the two year Transitional Government. I expect the
next election will be about June 2011 and we have therefore 10 quarters
of this arrangement of which the first has come and gone.
I was a part of the "transition team" established by Morgan Tsvangirai
in January 2008 when it was expected that we would win the March
election. As everyone knows we did win but were again denied the right
to rule because of fraud and the regional community. So when we
eventually did get a deal – over the dead body of the South African
President, it was a rather nasty compromise that tied us to Zanu PF in
a close embrace that is not appreciated by either Party.
Secretly each of the two Parties looks over the shoulder of the other
towards the 2011 election and thinks only of what they have to do to
win.
For Zanu PF it is quite simple – hold onto what they have left and no
compromise on anything that might ease their grip on the electoral
process.
So they have spent the past three months simply stonewalling the MDC in
all the critical areas linked to the electoral process. They have no
wish to demonstrate who plays the best cricket, they feel they just
have to filibuster the MDC until they get to the point where they can
go into an election where the same mix they have used to win and hold
onto power for 30 years can be brought into play. First prize for them
is the collapse of the GNU, second prize is a flawed election that they
can win in 2011.
These areas of conflict have become labelled by Tendai Biti as the
"toxic issues", described as such because of their potential to destroy
the GNU and undermine the success of the transitional government.
On the part of the MDC we have sought to make the deal work and to try
and get the situation in the country back to normal – whatever that is!
So you have seen the Prime Minister leaning over backwards to accept
his Zanu PF colleagues as such and to work with and not against the
President. While we have stuck with the demand that the GNU be
fulfilled in full and in spirit, Zanu PF has simple refused to back
down on any issue that might threaten their hold on what remains of
their State power.
This has made for an uneasy relationship and an uneven record of
achievement and failure. We had worked hard on the issue of macro
economic stabilisation and on our future relationship with the
multilateral institutions before the new government was formed. Because
of this we were able to agree and adopt Sterp within two weeks. This
stopped world record inflation in its tracks.
We amended the exchange control regime and lifted certain regulations
and adjusted import conditions. The results were startling; food came
into free supply, market conditions recovered and after a couple of
weeks, prices began to fall.
We went out on a limb and decided to halt all quasi fiscal activity and
take the fiscal crunch with cold turkey. We paid the civil service in
hard currency and told all Ministries they could only spend what they
had in the under the mattress. In four weeks we produced a new budget,
tore up the old one and slashed government expenditure by two thirds.
The patient survived – but only just. People found they could buy
things, workers could get on a bus to work, had real money in their
hands, not piles of useless paper. Business found that the huge sums of
money they had in their accounts were actually just paper and when the
cyclone of change had swept through, they had virtually nothing left.
Banks had no customers, building societies no bonds.
Everybody found themselves on the floor, bruised and battered but alive
and we all watched the sun rise slowly over the dawn horizon of a new
day.
Cyclone Gono was gone, but the evidence of its passage was everywhere.
So now we pick over the rubble and try to rebuild our lives. Food is in
free supply, but expensive, the emergency services are feeding the
really needy and health services are meeting basic needs. Clean water
is scarce and shelter is still a problem even though our population was
sharply reduced by the cyclone.
We still face major threats and problems. Pirates and gangs of
criminals roam the countryside looting what remains and exploiting the
chaos and lack of legal norms and institutions. The authorities are
slow to respond and have little capacity to protect the rights of the
population. The previous government was destroyed by the cyclone
because they failed to prepare for its arrival and passage. It will be
two years before we get a chance to elect a new government; in the
meantime we have a weak and inadequate administration that is only
partly functional.
At the Victoria Falls retreat four weeks ago we took what comprises our
temporary government and asked them to map out the future and develop a
100 day programme to start our long road back from disaster. On
Wednesday the results of that process will be published, warts and all
and government Ministers will then be judged on how they perform
against their own benchmarks.
We survived! But at what a cost and many are now asking "would we be
better off dead or living elsewhere"? Things are tough, very tough.
Prisoners and long term patients in State hospitals are dying of
hunger. Child mortality remains high and human flight to other
countries remains at unacceptable levels. Our population and our
economy are still in sharp decline.
Given the world crisis and the political problems surrounding aid
flows, we are going to have to rebuild the country using our own
resources and efforts. This may be healthier in the long term but it
will take longer. In the meantime the most important priority of the
people is to determine how to keep the pirates and thieves out of the
next government to be elected in 2011. If we can and do, then we can
pick up the pace of recovery and look forward to better days and a real
future.
Eddie Cross
Post published in: News